Monthly Archives: June 2017

The Chief Financial Officer is the top manin the financial/accounting departmentof big businesses. He watches moneythat come in and go out. The Economistis the world’s most powerful magazine,widely read by economists, business people,Wall Street, big banks, etc. The EconomistCFO is Toby Burton. He is deaf and is fromGreat Britain! Yes, he worries about theBrexit, but it is an issue everyone inEurope worries about. His picture is at:

DeafDigest editor is friends with one cop.Handcuffing the arrested deaf person wasone issue in a recent discussion. The copsaid that normal procedure is to handcuffall arrested people behind their backs.This is for their protection. If theperson is handcuffed in front of him, hecould hit the cop on the face withthese handcuffs! The cop knows thehandcuffed deaf person needs to usesign language or to use gestures.At this point, how could a handcuffeddeaf person communicate remains asticky issue!

— live captions and difficult accents

A recent BBC World News America programfeatured the ugly fighting at Mosul.The translators from Iraq spoke with athickly accented English that becamea nightmare for live captioners. Asa result the TV dialogue was horrible.Just one example – the word “bottle”came up frequently; it meant battle.We are always reading about these“successful” voice to text captioningsoftware. Yet, there are always issuesof bad live captions with these accentsas well as with American dialects.

An annual event in Reno is the Reno Fashion Show. Krista Hyatt, who is deaf, has been selected as one of the 200 models, for the fourth year in a row. She had to compete against 400 other models in an audition. She said that while she cannot follow the music, she follows the vibrations while walking on the runway. This annual event is big with the clothing designers, make-up artists and producers. Her picture is at:

People use refrigerator magnets to post up pictures, notes, reminders, etc on the refrigerator door. There is a start-up company that says their refrigerator buttons are much better than refrigerator magnets – and even more so, it is green-friendly. The start-up company has been established by Hal Bevers. He is deaf.

— no interpreter for deaf conference with attorney

A deaf man, in a criminal case, requested an interpreter for a conference with his attorney. The court said no, saying that he already has an interpreter for his case in the courtroom. ADA? This case took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland. What about USA? On its web site, the National Association of the Deaf said that ADA does not require an interpreter for conferences with private attorneys, if they prove it is an undue burden. Interpreters, however, must be provided for conferences with public defenders!

Three major deaf organiations are run by hearing leadersin New Zealand – Deaf Aotearoa, Kelston Deaf Education Centreand Auckland Deaf Society. The deaf community is upsetsaying they were pushed out of these top positions.Let us imagine that National Association of theDeaf, Gallaudet and NTID are all run by hearing CEOs!Deaf people in USA won’t let it happen, but it is happeningin New Zealand (as well as with one major organizationin Canada). A picture is at:

A deaf owner of an interpreting company wantedto sell his business. He asked the hearingattorney for advice. The hearing attorney,referred him to another hearing attorney sothat they could work together on the salesagreement. Instead the deaf owner ran to hiscompetitor, showing them the tax returns andfinancial statements. The hearing attorneywasn’t happy about it. The competitor lookedat the numbers, didn’t agree with it andbacked out. Not only the deaf owner lost apossible sale, but the competitor alreadylearned about this secret business information!

— no one told the deaf girl about the fire drill

In Great Britain, there was a fire drill ata hearing school, which had one deaf student.During the drill, everyone ran outside, butthe deaf girl didn’t know about it – becauseshe was in the restroom, which had no alarminside it. The county council wasn’t toohappy about it, because if it was a realfire, then the deaf girl may not survive.

In Northern Ireland, Cara McCartan, a Coda atthe age of seven, used the telephone to ask foremergency assistance when her mother was strickenwith a medical emergency at home. She was honoredat a big event. A picture is at:

The Market Watch published a list of each state’smost famous invention. In Alabama, the most famousinvention was the electronic hearing aid. Itwas invented in 1895 but did was not availablefor sale until later in the 20th century.

— Derrick Coleman taking a big risk in NFL

Derrick Coleman is NFL’s first deaf offensiveplayer. He was out of football last year buthas come back, signing a contract to play forAtlanta Falcons. He is taking a big risk.There was a nice newspaper story about himgiving tips to rookie quarterback Tyler Renew.Competition for roster spots with each NFLteam is cut throat; 90 players compete for 53roster spots. As a result, many veteran playersdo not give rookie players these tips – becauseit can come back to haunt them – getting cut!Just hope Derrick makes the 53-man rosterin September.

A new hair clip for the deaf? It is calledthe Ontenna (not to be confused withantenna). It is supposed to help the deafhear all kinds of sounds that go throughtheir hair! Not sure how it works withdeaf men with clean shaved head?A picture is at:

A hot issue in Pittsburgh is a proposed changes ofbus stops. There is a bus stop near the PittsburghAssociation of the Deaf (PAD), but the proposednew stop would be one block away. It may affectthe deaf-blind residents of Pittsburgh. Eachmonth PAD hosts a social event for the deaf-blind.Concern is that if the deaf-blind need to walkan extra block to reach PAD, it may cause problemsfor them!

— typical interpreter training program

Is there such a thing as a typical interpretertraining program? Let us take William WoodsUniversity (Fulton, Missouri) as the typicalone. It is one of 41 such interpretingprograms at colleges across the nation.This university has 60 interpretingstudents plus 85 on-line interpretingstudents. Typical or not? Doesn’t matter –the more qualified interpreters we have,the better it is for us!